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Publications and resourcesILO home > About the ILO > How the ILO works > Departments and offices > International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) > What is child labour What is child labour

Considerable differences exist between the many kinds of work children do. Some are difficult and demanding, others are more hazardous and even morally reprehensible. Children carry out a very wide range of tasks and activities when they work. Defining child labour

Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life. The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental...

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...Childlabour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Childlabour was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the advent of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during the industrial revolution, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.
An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents' consent at age 16.
The story of child protection is a sorry one. Across the world, children remain vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Poor and orphaned, increasing numbers of children are at the mercy of individuals with intent to harm them, and those individuals are often at the heart of institutions working with children.
Childlabour is an issue which has always been seen as a diabolic evil in the society. It...

...
ChildLabour in The Philippines
Childlabour can be defined as a part of a community which is forced or participate to work even if they are paid or not. Which are harmful to their health and dispossess them the chances to education, development, and a healthy living. Childlabour is one the major problems here in Camarines sur. Since we are a third world country, even if we are not capable to do work, we are obligated to find a job to and sustain our needs. It is linked to poverty and lack of decent and productive work. It makes the children away from school.
The measurement of child work cannot be divorced from its
economic and social significance. traditionally, a welfare perspective
has been adopted, by which childlabour is regarded spective has
been adopted, by which childlabour is regarded as an evil to be
eliminated. But it is difficult to make a general welfare judgement on
the work of children that can be maintained across time and cultures.
In many societies, particularly in low-income rural areas, a gradual
incorporation of the child into work activity occurs between the ages
of about 5 and 15, so that, whether for good or for bad, child work
is part of the process of socialisation. Some types of work are a source
of pride, atatus and perhaps independence...

...Critical essay
The role of government in childlabourChild labor is not an easy issue to resolve, it is globally. Children trading something on the streets, separated from families, kept out of schools, suffering from injuries, even dying because of hard work. It is something that should be changed. Therefore I agree that government should role this field. I choose to write about this theme, because government and society must do a lot more to help children. It would be great if government could reduce childlabour to a minimum.
Childlabour was employed to varying extents through most of history, especially during the Industrial Revolution, working in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions. World is progressing and changing, but childlabour is still common in some parts of the world like Asia, Africa. That shows that question of childlabour should be undertaken tight by the government. Nowadays there are organizations made to help children around the world, working for their rights, survival, development, education and protection. One of those is UNICEF (United Nations International Children`s Emergency Fund), which statistic data shows that Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of childlabour in the world with more than one-third of...

...Childlabour is a major problem in India. It is a great challenge that the country is facing. The prevalence of it is evident by the child work participation rates which are higher in India than in other developing countries. Estimates cite figures of childlabour between 60 and 115 million working children in India, the highest number in the world (Human Rights Watch, 1996). It is basically rooted in poverty.
It is poverty that forces a child to earn money to support his family. Though it is prevalent in the whole of the country, the problem is acute in socio- economically weaker States like UP, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and North-Eastern States. Besides poverty, lack of education, and accessible sources of credit forces poor parents to engage their children as childlabour. The big challenge for India, as a developing country is to provide nutrition, education and health care to these children.
There are more children under the age of fourteen in India than the entire population of the United States. Over 85 per cent of this childlabour is in the country’s rural areas, working in agricultural activities, such as farming, livestock rearing, forestry and fisheries. This labour is outside the formal sector, and also outside industry. Moreover, nine out of ten children working...

...Child Labor
It is widely accepted that one of the key components to a healthy future is a good education. Education is so important that in most well-developed countries, it is the law, with a punishment for refusing to go to school. However, children around the world are deprived of this essential right. These children are unlawfully forced into working long hours in horrible conditions, and are often in contact with hazardous materials. Child labor occurs the most in areas of high poverty as well as lack of schooling. In some parts of Africa, 50% of children age 5-14 are employed. Most of these children work in agriculture, which is not necessarily dangerous work, but can become very physically draining when the child is worked for excessive amounts of time without a break. Many other children work in mines, which are inherently dangerous due to the lack of safety standards. They could be exposed to dangerous chemicals and there is a very high risk for injury. The world has declared this a violation of basic human rights, because it ruins the futures of children at an early age, essentially killing any chance they could have had to be successful.
There are two major concerns around the area of child labor: lack of education and health issues. In areas of high poverty, there are generally not enough schools to educate all the children. Therefore, many children get a job to help support their family. Although it...

...social, and political effects of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the 19th Century?
The Industrial Revolution transformed Great Britain into the export capital of the world, however, the social, economic, and political effects of child labor in textile mills in the 19th century as a result of the Industrial Revolution were detrimental to Great Britain. Child labor caused an unsafe environment for the children, it lowered wages and stole jobs from adults, and caused many failed attempts from the government to try to control it.
Child labor in textile mills was very demanding for the young workers. The average child worked about 14 to 16 hours a day, from Monday to Saturday. On Sunday, which was usually a worker’s only day off, some children were forced to return to the mill and clean the machines. Boys and girls had different jobs, although both were demanding and dangerous. A boy worked as a scavenger, meaning he crawled under the whirling machines to retrieve any dropped cotton. His hair, clothing, or body could become tangled and caught in the machine resulting in severe injury or death. A girl’s job was a piecer, she would repair broken thread. In 1841, a study showed that one child walked an average of 30 miles a day from just walking around the mill doing his or her job. James Myles, a young mill boy wrote, “The factory owners were in charge of feeding...

...﻿You can't regulate child labor. You can't regulate slavery. Some things are just wrong.
Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.
"Small hands can handle a pen better. Lend your support to abolish child labor."
Eradicate child labor and aspire for a better future"
World revolves around the children. Childrens' future revolves around education. Stop Child Labor"
So open your eyes child, let's be on our way. Broken windows and ashes are guiding the way.
Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.
There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they can grow up in peace."
"Children do not constitute anyone's property: they are neither the property of their parents nor even of society. They belong only to their own future freedom."
Feeding a child at school is such a simple thing – but it works miracles.
The ultimate test of a moral society
is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”
You must work - we must all work to make the world...

...Primary causes
International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind childlabour.[14] For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 to 40% of these household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African childlabour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global childlabour have reached the same conclusion.[13][52][53]
Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according to ILO,[14] is another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60-70% of childlabour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.[13][54]
Young girl working on a loom in Aït Benhaddou, Morocco in May 2008.
Cultural causes
In European history when childlabour was common, as well as in contemporary childlabour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have...